The Disorder of Evil

But we’re social animals, Tom. We’re here to respect each other, so what’s evil is what harms the community. Though, of course, despite our welcoming of faith groups, the word ‘evil’ has connotations of absolutism inappropriate for our more pluralistic age. We’re moving away from the old mediaeval paradigms of ‘evil’ in order to see this behaviour as a sociophyschological illness that can be treated or at least contained. What people call ‘evil’ really is just disorder—in the body, in the spirit, or in the community. By detecting it early, we save a lot of trouble and anguish in later years—and there are enormous economic benefits too.